The Terrorizers

They don’t know each other, but the lives of ten people become intertwined in The Terrorizers. Edward Yang, who lived in the United States for a long time, concentrates on three storylines that occasionally briefly cross. A photographer becomes obsessed by the pictures he has taken of White Chick, the girlfriend of a criminal on the run from the cops. She is staying with her mother, recovering from an ankle injury she got when escaping the police. Boredom makes her start making hoax phone calls, and sometimes these have far reaching consequences - such as a marital crisis between a writer and her ambitious husband.
Yang’s film refers to Antonioni’s Blow-Up and in it he captures (post-)modern life in Taipei, where alienation is the norm. The title ‘terrorizers’ refers to the disruptive hoax phone calls by White Chick, the part-time prostitute who robs men, but also applies to the life of all the characters, who ‘terrorise’ each other emotionally, whether they realise it or not.
The 28 January session will feature a post-screening discussion with Chris Fujiwara.